Reviews

I gotta say, I really love this show. It is doing the classical approach, where they bring out an assumption, say that this might be true and in the next scene they go "hey, we have just proven that fact, let us make our next assumption". I just watched the episode where they dive in a lake in Austria. First they interview a local guy, the local guy says "Yes, there might be something down there" (but he says it in german) and the translation is "He is absolutely positive that there is something down there". They then do a sonar scan on the lake and they find something rectangular "Hey, this must be a box containing all the escape routes of all the head nazis, including Hitler". They do a dive and find a truck. By the time the have ascended again the truck has become a Nazi truck. They dive down again and find a bayonett and a medal close to the truck. This is taken as a proof that the Nazis were using this truck to ferry documents. And all the time you sit there as a spectator and you go "hang on, when did we prove that fact and how did we end up with that assumption". This show is a real great showcase about how to make a mountain out of a molehill and a theory out of nothing. BTW: The scull in Russia is not Hitlers skull, but they also had found the lower jaw of Hitler and according to his doctor Hitler was extremely sick in the last days (not just mentally, thanks for asking). In the series "Hunting Hitler" the lower jaw seems to have regrown and Hitler has recovered fully. Those pesky german doctors really seem to have been the mythical "Wunderwaffen" of the third Reich

I am a really big fan of Eddie Izzard (ever since I discovered him in "Cake or Death") and I have seen all of his major shows at least 10 times. I was a tad worried after the show at Madison Garden, since I had the feeling that it was going downhill from now on. Jokes were recycled and the whole flow of the show felt wrong. So I was somewhat reluctant to watch his "Force Majeure" performance, but I am glad to be proved wrong. Eddie Izzard is back and better than he has been for a long time. He is bringing in a lot of incredible new stories and laughs and, best of all, he is returning to one of his old haunts, the Cantina of the "Death star". What I love most about his shows (this one included) is that you get the feeling that he makes up things on the spot. I know that he rehearses himself to death, but when he comes on stage you still get the impression that he plays everything by ears. Job well done, watch "Force Majeure", you will definitely not regret it.

I stumbled over "Cities of the Underworld" while browsing around on Youtube and I was hooked right from the beginning. What a great show this is. Both hosts in my opinion do a really great job by doing their spelunking trips with a lot of fervor and enthusiasm and you can tell the people they talk to are getting excited as well, so their enthusiasm seems to be quite contagious. Some of the scenes are a tad over the top ("We are the first ones going down here, so we do not know what we will see" or the one in Berlin where the host enters for the first time a bunker on his own), but so what, no damage has ever been done by some showmanship. I myself have been in some of the described caves and underground structures and from the few I have seen I have to say that the description given by the host is usually very accurate and reliable; so while it is mainly good fun to watch the show, you might actually learn something from these shows. I can fully recommend this show and I can only express my misery of having not been asked to do this show. I would have done it for free :)